1. Description of the Prior Art
U.S. Patent Specification No. 4,343,248 relates in particular to a sewing machine whose casing has a lower arm, an upper arm and a pillar connecting these arms, in which at least a part of the front surface of the upper arm carries a first plurality of ideograms characteristic of a corresponding number of different stitches capable of being carried out by the machine. The upper arm has a cover pivotingly mounted about an axis substantially parallel to the longitudinal axis of the upper arm and is capable either of being shut down onto this arm or of being brought into a raised position, distant from the upper arm. At least a part of the internal surface of the cover, which is visible from the front of the machine when the cover is in the raised position, carries a second plurality of ideograms representative of other stitches capable of being carried out by the machine.
In this type of machine, the cover is mounted in such a manner that, in the turned down position when the machine is not in use, it only covers a portion of the length of the upper face of the arm on which it is hinged. This arrangement allows the viewing of the set of ideograms appearing on the front surface of the frame of the machine even when the cover is in the turned down position.